Category Archives: Donation

Working with global NGO, Education Above All, we created this short film to describe the plight of 57million children – that they are denied their right to basic education and with that their opportunity to improve their lives, often lived in poverty. Filming took place with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest, poverty stricken children in DRCongo, girls in Rajasthan and children avoiding drugs and violence in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Meryl Streep kindly gave her time to provide the voice over. I wrote the words. Production house was Quite Frankly Productions in London, Lies Deneys directed.

The evening kicked off at the Hermitage Club with an exclusive dinner with special guest, actress Meryl Streep. Also in attendance were Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and Congressman Peter Welch. The fundraising dinner was sold out, with 115 guests paying between $1,000 and $5,000 per plate. Donors paying for the $2,500 and $5,000 plates also had their photos taken with Streep.

Streep was at the event at the behest of her friend, Wilmington Fund VT founder and president Dan Kilmurray. Kilmurray says he has known Streep’s family for years. “Her brother and I met and became dear friends when I was about 18,” Kilmurray said. “I met her when she graduated from Vassar. When I was in the process of launching this fundraising event, I asked her if she would help.”

During an after-dinner chat hosted by Kilmurray’s wife and co-founder of Wilmington Fund VT, Tamara Kilmurray, Streep said that one of the reasons she was willing to help the Wilmington Fund was because she was familiar with the town. After she left Dartmouth College for Vassar, she said, she continued to travel between the two colleges on trips to visit her boyfriend at Dartmouth. “Wilmington was my halfway point,” she said. “I used to stop at a little ice cream place on Route 9 that isn’t there anymore (Gene’s KreeMee).”

Streep also found an unexpected connection to the area. Rep. Ann Manwaring told her that the bottles of Vermont maple syrup on the tables were donated by local business owner Ed Metcalfe, who had attended elementary school with Streep. “Oh, little Eddie Metcalfe?” Streep said. “Is he here?” But Metcalfe wasn’t in attendance.

The three actresses have joined forces with Frieda Pinto, Selena Gomez, Salma Hayek, Kerry Washington and Alicia Keys to lend their voices to the film, entitled Girl Rising.

The project, which is in partnership with global action campaign 10 x 10, was launched to coincide with International Women’s Day on 8 March (13).

Streep says, “This film gives visual corroboration to knowledge we already have: educating women and girls has the most optimistic, postive effects on families, communities and economiesworldwide. If to see it is to know it, this film delivers hope; reasonable, measurable, tangible hope that the world can be healed and helped to a better future.”

The film, directed by Richard E. Robbins, will premiere in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles on Wednesday (06Mar13).

Meryl Streep also donated an iPhone photo of herself and Hillary Clinton taken at the Kennedy Center honors reception early this month. What was the effect on the site’s traffic and the project itself?

That helped immensely. She was incredibly gracious to do that. I had received an email from her assistant a couple of days before asking if there was any sort of time frame for the project, and I wrote back saying, “No, this is gonna be an ongoing project and so anytime that she would like to donate, we would be very, very grateful”. And two days later, they sent over the photo, the iPhone photo that she took. And at first I was confused because I’m not on the internet all that much. I was a little confused and I wrote back saying, “So, Meryl Streep did take this photo, right, because that’s the requirement that the artist actually took the photo.” And her assistant came back to me and said, “Oh no. You should look at the web, it’s all over the web.”

But then I still wasn’t sure that it was an exclusive photo for us, and the more research I did, the more I found out that no one had this photo, that she donated this photo just to us. A few of the sites that had the picture of her taking the photo, said, “We sure would love to see that photo. I wonder where it is.” That’s when I emailed some of these publications and said, “We have the photo and so here it is.” And that was incredible because it went on the wire service globally and we had a tremendous amount of traffic based on that photo. I was just overwhelmed by her generosity, and she knew that that would be a great help for us for publicity. Well, she was wonderful. She signed the contract within two days, the certificate and the photo is now available. So, she was very quick to respond and to help.

I saw her speak at the “Women in the World” conference this past March, and she introduced Hillary Clinton. This is a conference once a year created by Tina Brown and it’s here in New York City and it’s extraordinary. It’s three days of people talking about women’s issues around the world and what they’re doing to help, what they need. Very inspiring. It was really wonderful to see Meryl Streep give this really beautiful introduction to Hillary Clinton. And then it was really great to get the photo, and so it kind of came full circle for me. I’m very happy to have it.

According to this article Meryl, was presenter on the concert last night:

The 12-12-12 show is going to big tonight. Like you, I will be watching it from a comfortable BarcaLounger, with Two Boots Pizza and cold Tecate beer. It’s a four hour show at least– Paul McCartney doesn’t start the closing set until 11:30pm. So a guide to what’s happening is helpful. Here’s what I’ve got so far. Keep checking later today as updates come in.

MUSICIANS IN ORDER (subject to change)

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band starts at 7:30pm

Roger Waters (with Eddie Vedder)

Bon Jovi

Eric Clapton and friends

The Rolling Stones

Alicia Keys

The Who

Kanye West

Chris Martin of Coldplay

Billy Joel

Paul McCartney (with special guest Dave Grohl)

So far, insiders tell me that McCartney has “Live and Let Die” with the fireworks, but there was no rehearsal for “Hey Jude.”